A Tale of Two Brines

 This has been turn your cucumbers into pickles week at our house.  As I posted here, we're very excited to be doing our first old fashioned brined dill pickles.  We just need a place to put it other than in the middle of the kitchen counter.  Anyone want to come over and help us get the butcher block moved in from the barn?? ;)

Having this process under our belts we moved on to our favorite bread and butter pickles.  I was able to process one batch with a left over seasoning packet from last year, but needed more to keep going.  I had no idea that it would be so difficult to find!  After driving and calling all over town, I found the closest seasoning wasn't going to be delivered for 2 weeks!  Too long to wait for the pile of English Cukes accumulating in the fridge.  So I began to research making them from scratch. 

 We do so much from scratch, I guess I never thought of the seasoning mix as cheating. I went out and grabbed the few seasonings I was missing and began this morning.  Interestingly, every recipe called to brine the cukes with onions for 3 hours then drain them before placing in jars and filling with the hot liquid mixture.  I'm interested to see how this process affects the taste and texture of the pickles.   So often we take the 'short cuts' to make things a bit easier for our busy lives.  But, the ten minutes to put the veggies in brine didn't interfere.  Them sitting around doing their thing for 3 hours really doesn't stop me from accomplishing other tasks.  And you know what?  Not only do I know the source of every ingredient, I'll bet these will taste a ton better too! 

Owl Watching

 Could this abandoned nest be his/her home??

I've become rather obsessed.  Two nights ago, B called me to the window to see this giant owl sitting low on a branch in the maple tree.  I race for my camera, and he swooped away just as I was raising my lens and before I could catch it.  I love these majestic creatures.  I remember as a child, we had an owl in the neighborhood that we caught a glimpse of periodically.  Since we've moved to the homestead I will occasionally hear a pair of owls.  They do seem to be somewhat social creatures and like to hoot back and forth.  The last time I heard them was this winter, well spring in many places, but still winter-like here.  I went out early one March morning to the sound of an owl pair gently talking back and forth across the yard. 

The birds this year have been amazing.  It's either an extension of the oddly warm weather we have had, or it has something to do with the fact that I have proactively tried to place multiple bird feeders.  On several occasions, there have been a gaggle of crows loudly ho-ranging something high in the hickory tree.  Last night there were a few loud finch like birds aggressively going after something.  I realized they are trying to chase away this large owl living among the boughs.

 Woodpecker captured while on the owl quest

So this evening as I walked outside at dusk, I marveled at the birds all around me headed to roost.  The last of the hens were clucking their way in.  Robins, cardinals, finches, woodpeckers and everything in between seemed to be hurrying across the sky to their various homes.  Our humidity has broken leaving less dense and fresher air. Tonight, the singing voices of these avian are only eclipsed by the crickets emerging in the cool night air.  I kept a watchful eye, but haven't caught sight of the wise old predator.  I will continue to search for him and hope to capture a shot to share.

Love this Crock!

 I <3 this crock!!!  

It has been such a busy few weeks in the garden.  Harvest has really kicked in, a full month early, and it keeps coming.  Interestingly, the bounty does seem to be staging itself, with lots of  beans, squash and cucumbers the last couple of weeks, and tomatoes just coming.  Last year we had tomatoes and cukes at the same time. Though we had some amazing Greek salads, it was too much all at once. 

I emailed our farm basket recipients today that this will be an off week.  We need to do a little preservation catch up here at the homestead.  We raced home today at lunch after dropping Sid at Girl Scout camp.  In a phenomenal husband/wife assembly line, we blanched another 8 quarts of green beans and put up our first real brined dill's in the amazing crock above!  (did I mention we did this with the 50 minutes that remained of our lunch break from work??)

I haven't posted as often about the daily harvest stuff on the homestead.  If you'd like to see how we're doing, check out the Back to the Garden link above :)

I love the crock I picked up last week.  Here's the recipe, if you're looking for some good Old-Fashioned Brined Dill Pickles:

20 lbs. pickling cucumbers, 3-6 inches long

3/4 cup whole mixed pickling spice 

2-3 bunches fresh dill

2 1/2 C. Vinegar

1 3/4 C. Salt

2 1/2 Gallons Water

Cover cucumbers with cold water and wash thoroughly but gently.  Remove blossom ends.  Place 1/2 of pickling spice (we found that one spice jar was about 1/2 cup) and a layer of dill in a 5 gallon crock or glass container.  Fill the crock with cucumbers to within no more than 5 inches of the top.  Place a layer of dill and the remaining pickling spice on the top of the Cucumbers.

Mix vinegar, salt and water and pour over the cucumbers.  Cover the cucumbers with a heavy plate that fits inside the crock.  Place a weight on the plate to keep the cucumbers submerged and completely covered by the brine (we used a mason jar, filled with water as the weight). Cover the crock loosely with a clean cloth.  Keep the pickles at room temperature, ideally at 68-75 degrees.  In about 3-5 days, scum will start to form on the brine.  Remove it daily with a metal spoon.

Do not stir pickles.  Always keep them completely submerged in brine.  Add more brine as necessary, following the original proportions of vinegar to salt to water. 

After 3 weeks of fermentation, the dills will be ready to put up in jars.  At this point, the brine may be cloudy due to the development of yeast during the fermentation period.  Strain the brine, or make a fresh brine of 1/3 cup salt and 4 cups vinegar to 1 gallon water.  The strained brine makes a better pickle because its flavors have blended with the cucumbers and dill.  Bring the brine to a boil.  Pack the pickles, along with some of the dill from the crock, into clean, hot quart jars (boil jars for 3 minutes prior to filling).  Do not pack too tightly.  Cover the pickles with hot brine, leaving 1/2 inch headspace; seal.  Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  If you'd like a garlic flavor, you can add a clove to each jar when you process.

*This recipe adapted from www.thatsmyhome.com

Yields 9-10 quarts.

Quilt Along---Week 6

This weeks blocks were fun!  There is something so peaceful to me (no pun intended) about putting blocks together.  Sidney began a four day Sew Basics & Sew Intermediate summer camp through the girl scouts this week.  She's had a great time through day one and completed a pillowcase so far.  She had a hiccup when she sewed her opening shut and got to experience the seam ripper.  Funny thing too as I'll mention in a minute.

Cross # 5

I'm finding one of the most challenging parts as we get further along, trying to decide which fabrics to use as I slowly reach the end of certain ones.

New Album

I went ahead and did the cream colored center as traditional.  I'd like to try to put something in the center if I can work around the fact that I finished the rest of the block.  **funny thing, as Sid had to learn about seam ripping yesterday, I sewed the second two triangles on the center reversed and had to do a little seam ripping myself!

Several of you have wanted to see how Sid's blocks are coming.  She's a few weeks behind me, but had collected quite a bit of scrap fabric preparing for her classes and is excited to incorporate them as we go on.  Here' s where she's at so far....

What to Do in an Outdoor Sauna

 Today we did some of our first canning, bread and butter pickles & tomatillos!

Last night was severe weather and 3 inches of rain where we are, and we were lucky, since areas just north had upwards of 7 inches.  So the atmosphere is saturated and out comes the sun.  It's 90 degrees and 67 percent humidity with more storms on their way!  Wow, this season has been crazy.  It's been much warmer than usual and very wet.  The garden has flourished and produced much earlier than in the past, which has led to a jump start on stocking our freezer.  We have also had time to plant a second crop of many things for a fall harvest.  This will double up on some of our food storage items. 

Today began with taking the kids out for breakfast as a treat and trying to find berries along the railroad tracks.  We were too late to take advantage of the wild berries for jam, they were all gone.  In the last couple of weeks I have seen the tell tale shortening of light in our days, and yesterday I saw half a dozen trees that are tinged with the beginnings of fall color!  Typically we can see some color by the middle/end of August, but July!?  To top it off, I did a little bit of mowing late this afternoon and our apple trees are dropping ripe apples....hello Mother Nature...it's July!

So what does one do when you walk outside and it's a sauna?  You could put on your spa gear and simply sit outside for a steam, but we tend to work in spurts, collapse on the couch in between, put up produce, and marvel in the fact that this summer seems to almost be a double season for us.  Maybe that's because of this crazy weather, or maybe we're just getting better and better at what we're doing. I'm relishing every bit of summer and looking forward to my favorite of seasons approaching by what seems to be leaps and bounds.